Visible light remote sensing: it is to take pictures of the detected objects with a camera.
Microwave remote sensing: taking pictures of objects with microwaves.
2. The ability to penetrate clouds is different.
Visible light remote sensing: "daunting" to clouds, especially to rain clouds.
Microwave remote sensing: You can travel freely in the clouds, so you can shoot ground scenes (such as satellites) in the sky.
3. Get different information
Visible light remote sensing: The colors of soil and plants in photos are mainly determined by the molecular resonance of their surface layers.
Microwave remote sensing: the color of the photo reflects the geometric and medium characteristics of soil and plants.
4. Different lighting effects.
Visible light remote sensing: greatly limited by solar illumination conditions.
Microwave remote sensing: it is not or rarely affected by clouds, rain and fog, and does not need lighting conditions. It can get images and data around the clock.
Baidu encyclopedia-visible light remote sensing
Baidu Encyclopedia-Microwave Remote Sensing